Oludeniz -4. good conditions

Babadag (Top) Pano looking SW

Babadag (Top) Pano lookingN

Another good day here at Oludeniz; actually even better than yesterday: nicer thermals, better visibility (better take-off ;-)   )

Babadag (Top)

Hartmut

'1700' (main launch for tandems)

My friends (Hartmut,Bernd,Glenn, Davis) flew to Kabak, a nice beach; but I choose to land at Oludeniz - mostly for reasons of convenience (transportation back).

Kabak

Oludeniz beach

Oludeniz -3: finally a flight

Today we rode up the mountain at 1100. Conditions looked pretty good on top and once all the tandems got off, we had enough space, so we could prepare without being under any pressure to hurry.

'1900' -north launch

Hartmut, Bernd and Davis elected to fly to 'Kabak', a beach about 7km SE from Babadag.
I didn't join them, as I wanted to make sure I could fly without pain and therefore I wanted to have a big, easy LZ nearby - just in case I needed to land quickly ;-)

looking towards 'Fethyie'

'my' hotel

tandem formation flight

It has been an easy, relaxed flight, but still I've flound some 5m/s-thermals.

Oludeniz -2

Yesterday (Wednesday) Top of Babadag was in clouds, so everybody was taking off from '1200'. This launch has just recently been built exactly for this purpose: to permit flights when the higher launches are in clouds. But it is not nearly big enough to handle the huge amount of (tandem-) pilots wanting to launch here...

'1200'

So instead of awaitung our turn here, Hartmut proposed to go down to '300'.
This launch is - as its name implies - just 300m high. It's a rather difficult, technical launch: small, just rocks and bushes. As I didn't feel well enough to handle this tricky TO with not enough wind (for my liking) and also in pain, I declined to fly and together with Davis and Glenn we rode back into town. Hartmut and Bernd got off without problems and have even been able to soar up to about 1000m - cool guys!

Oludeniz -1: Surprise, Surprise...

At rather short notice I dedided to fly to Oludeniz in Turkey for a week.
Actually it has been Ruth to suggest this as she realized I was in a rather 'lousy' mood and needed to fly somewhere. Oludeniz came up as my good friend Hartmut is presently staying here for 2 weeks and we haven't been flying together for many years; this winter we tried to get together in Arosa in March, but the weather didn't 'comply'. So far the only time I've been here was in July 1996, also with Hartmut.
At first I didn't want to go, as I assumed, that there would be no direct flights and travelling via Istambul (IST) is rather cumbersome. Much to my surprise I found out that EdelweissAir (EDW/ WK) is flying into Dalaman (DLM) twice a week from ZRH.
So together with Gaby (Hartmut's girl friend) I set everything up, in order we could surprise him today.
And what a surprise it was when I joined and greeted him in the shuttle going up to Babadag!!

pix by Bernd

my hotel: 'La Boutique Maya'

Flyingwise unfortunately I have to say that I couldn't fly, even though the conditions would have been pretty good. At first there was a cloud layer below launch but it cleared away after about 1,5hrs parawaiting. But the pain in my back came on very strong a couple of times, so I had to abandon the idea of flying to Butterfly Valley (which can be only reached by boat and of course by flying in).
So I had to take the shuttle down again :-((   Gladly the driver dropped me off right at my hotel.

Tandem taking off

Addendum

To see the pain situation from a 'positive' point of view (at least for today), I'd like to add here that the pain held me back from flying (as mentioned above) because the boat which was to take me back to Oludeniz sunk (!) upon leaving Butterfly Valley in less than 2 or 3 minutes. Hartmut told me tonight that there was absolute pandemonium and chaos while everybody tried to get off the boat.
I don't know how I would have handled this situation in my present physical state.
Luckily it happened very close to the shore, nobody was seriously injured, all the packs with the paragliders got (more or less) dry to the beach...
But they arrived more than 3 hours later than scheduled in Oludeniz,

Alpago

So after a short 2 hours drive I arrived in Pieve di Alpago (or to be more precise in 'Valdenogher'), where I had dinner with my friend Masa(hiro) and his group of japanese pilots. As usual it has been a very funny evening.
As they where all still jetlagged, everybody went to bed early, but breakfast was also early and already by 1000 they were ready on launch for their first flights.

Pano on launch, looking SSW

Already at this time there have been some thermals, but I didn't launch until 1230.

Launch

looking north (Monte Pelmo)

As I had to be home in the evening, I was then leaving them to a third flight and started my 7.5hrs drive back.
But (again) it has been a nice trip with some good flights (nothing exceptional) but in great company. Thanks to all of you guys!!!

Mangart, Lijac

The day started again with clear blue skies. Already last night Marco and I had decided to go to Mangart in Slovenia, even if there was a better than good chance that we would NOT be able to fly due to the persistent N-, NE-winds. So we left at 0800 for the 2.5hr drive up to Mangart.

Driving up; looking West into Italy; mount 'Kanin' sightly left of center

Marco

Looking East

looking South West

TO

LZ on the large meadow in center of pix

As we had suspected, it was still blowing too hard out of the North, so unfortunately I couldn't fly (but I'll be back one day!).
On the way back we checked if Kobala (Tolmin) was flyable, but we could see nobody in the air. Also in Lijac only a few pilots flew, so I deceided to move on, as I was to meet my friend Masa(hiro) from Japan in the evening at Pieve di Alpago.

'Kanal', Soca river (on the way back)

Aviano, Meduno

Yesterday evening we (Nicole&Alberto,Marco and his son Paolo, me) went into Slovenia for dinner: lots of meat  :-))
Otherwise the day has been uneventful: rainy (at last).

Alberto, Nicole, Paolo, Marco

Today started with blue skies, some snow on the Slovenian Mountains (Kirn, Mangart) and an excellent visiblity.
We headed for Aviano, as this site can only be flown on weekends and holidays (military air base). Unfortunately the thermals were pretty torne up.

Aviano: antenna launch

The day ended with a short flight in Meduno (too much shadow, too little wind).

Meduno (Mte Valinis)

sightseeing & dinner

Although it would have been possible to fly in Lijac, we didn't go up to launch as the pilots we saw in the air had a very low groundspeed. We estimated wind out of the east with at least 25kmh.
In Redipuglia (close to Marco's place) is a monument of WW1 (the so called 'grande guerra') - a bit similar to the one on Mte.Grappa. Marco claimes it to be the largest militray cemetary of WW1. Here are buried 100'000 soldiers: 70'000 named and 30'000 unnamed...

Seeing this really makes you think and wonder if mankind really made any progress over time.

For a more relaxed note we next drove to 'Grado' on the Adriatic coast for a walk along the shoreline and some 'gelato'.

'selfie' with Marco

For dinner we later met Arduino and Carlo at the Ostarie dal Palut in Tricesimo (just north of Udine), a beautifully restored barn from the 17th century with equally good food and wines.

Arduino, Carlo, Marco

l'Ostarie dal Palut

Lijac (SI)

Yesterday I didn't fly (though in the morning a sledder in Bassano should have been possible).
I had hoped to get to Lijac before the wx would get there, but contrary to all info I've had. it started to rain when I got to the IT-SLO border in Gorizia by 1300  :-((

Also for today I had little hope, but then Marco texted me that Lijac could be flyable.
So when I got there, I could see many pilots on launch (competitors for task 3 of the Serial Cup held this week in SLO) and I could hitch a ride with a flightschool from Berlin. Marco, doing transports for the comp, met me at the parking and kindly offered to carry my pack to launch.

"the window is open"

All he comp pilots were airborne in less than 30 minutes and then I could set up without pressure and launch.

task begins

launch

the longer the day, the better it got

LZ

This is the kind of flights I like most: in the morning you don't expect to fly at all, when you get to launch it's flyable but not very promising and in the end you make a very nice flight...

Bassano

As the forecast for the Alps region (Vinschgau, Pustertal, Osttirol) didn't look too convincing, I decided to go to Bassano on my way east to Friuli/ Slowenia.

With the shuttle I got only to the lowest TO ('Stella); with hitch-hiking I was able to reach 'il pupolo' (H-launch) and from there I could ride with Hakan (SWE) and Daniel (AT) to Panettone, just below Mte.Grappa. Thanks guys!

When we arrived, we were still above cloud base, but by 1400, base had risen enough to launch.

'gardeners' - keeping the grass low on launch ;-)

'Panettone' launch

looking back to launch and Mte.Grappa

Mte.Grappa: WW1 Memorial

Unfortunately, the wind was a bit too much westerly, this prevented a real good flight...

'soul food' - before/ after flight

Cassons :-((

As the Gondola from Naraus to Cassons will be shut down definitely at the end of October'15, I wanted to fly this site again. Last time I was here has been in 2002.
The panorama on launch is exceptional and it's one of the few sites that can be safely flown in light 'Föhn' (= south wind) conditions. Most other sites cannot be flown with Föhn, as this wind creates too much turbulence in those places.

looking WSW

'Tödi' (right, with snow on Top)

Andy launching

below Andy is 'Crap Sogn Gion', another flying site

Unfortunately I had a very bad day what regards my 'pain problem'. Andy had to help carry my pack already from the car to the chairlift; from the topstation of the cablecar to launch I managed myself - but just barely without another pain attack.

After the second unsuccesfull launch attempt I was in pain again and had to call it off for today   :-((  

>>  Mario & Andy: many thanks for your generous help!!

Then I drove via 'Splügen pass' - Chiavenna - Lecco - Bergamo to Bassano, where I hope I'll be able to fly tomorrow; at least the wx fcst is looking good...

(I've been living with this 'problem' for the last 15 years, but it has never been as bad as during the last few weeks)

the dream of flying (der Traum vom Fliegen): 220km XC from Zermatt to Davos

Swiss Televison (SRF.ch) has produced a documentation (in real time) about a 220km-flight from Zermatt to near Davos (on 3.June 2015) with Chrigel Maurer and his brother.
The track log of the flight can be found here.

Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 (about 1 hour each).